CROOKSTON GIRL’S SOCCER DOMINATES W-H-A IN SECTION PLAY-IN GAME

The Crookston Pirate Girl’s Soccer team tied their season-high in goals and dominated in a 7-0 win over Walker-Hackensack-Akeley at the Crookston High School soccer field on Thursday afternoon in a Section 8A tournament play-in game.

FIRST HALF –
Crookston drove into a stiff south wind to open the game, but it didn’t affect their offensive plan all that much. Junior Clara Meyer got things started for the Pirates with a goal less than 11 minutes into the game. The goal was made possible by a solid cross pass from senior Makenze Epema. Just over six minutes later, Epema got her own scoring chance off of a long pass up the middle of the field from junior Olivia Huck. The Pirates led 2-0 at halftime, and didn’t allow a single shot-on-goal in the first 40 minutes from W-H-A. “Even when we were against the pretty strong crosswind, we were able to get two goals in the first half,” Crookston head coach Sarah Reese said. “In the second half, I said that we need to use the wind and we need to use our momentum to really propel us forward. We were really clicking on all parts of the field.”

SECOND HALF –
With the wind now at their back, the Pirates cruised on offense in the second half. Freshman Cassie Solheim found the goal just over 12 minutes into the second half off of an assist from Makenze Epema. Crookston kept the ball on the Wolves’ side of the pitch for the vast majority of the second half, and kept the pressure on W-H-A’s defense. This resulted in Crookston taking nine corner kicks in about a 15-minute span. After Clara Meyer took the first handful of corner kicks, Olivia Huck took a turn and had great success. Huck’s first corner kick resulted in senior Danielle Haake’s first career goal. Just eight minutes later, Huck scored a goal of her own directly off of a corner kick, putting the Pirates up 5-0. Crookston didn’t let up on offense, as they scored two more goals in the final 10 minutes. Makenze Epema scored her second goal of the game off of an assist from sophomore Kailee Magsam. Then, with just over a minute left, junior McKayla Brown scored her first career goal off of an assist from fellow junior Mallorie Sundeen. In all, six different Pirates scored goals and four different Pirates logged an assist. “The game ended really well,” Coach Reese said. “We played all 80 minutes together. It was a pretty special day. I think it really shows the contributions of the whole team. We had all eligible players playing today, so that was exciting to get contributions from everyone.”

Crookston improves to 4-7 on the season and will travel to play the #1 seed East Grand Forks Green Wave on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m.  “We need to take the momentum and all of the good things from today and we need to bring our A-game,” Reese said. “It’s going to be a group effort. Whether we win or lose, it’s going to be a group effort. We want to bring everything that we can and utilize our space and our touches, and play high caliber like we can. We have to come in mentally prepared, too.”  You can hear the Pirate soccer game on KROX Radio.
Walker-Hackensack-Akeley ends their season at 0-11.

Scoring –
10:55 – Crox – Clara Meyer (Makenze Epema)
17:04 – Crox – Makenze Epema (Olivia Huck)
52:13 – Crox – Cassie Solheim (Makenze Epema)
56:55 – Crox – Danielle Haake (Olivia Huck corner kick)
64:00 – Crox – Olivia Huck (corner kick)
71:00 – Crox – Makenze Epema (Kailee Magsam)
78:40 – Crox – McKayla Brown (Mallorie Sundeen)